Milano, "The Garden of Wonders" is born at the CIQ in the Corvetto area

Milano 10 June 2020 – During the long period of lockdown, which starting from 23 February led to the closure of the International Neighborhood Centre, with over 60 cultural and social initiatives cancelled, eight people lived in the farmhouse and worked on the redevelopment of the adjacent green area, giving life to two new multifunctional outdoor spaces: a garden area designed for moments of sharing free time, with shows, lunches and dinners, film screenings, book presentations and cultural activities of various kinds, and an educational garden for laboratory activities, development of the 2030 agenda programme, raising awareness on environmental and food issues and bringing together foods, cultures and habits from different countries around the world.

Today the abandoned area of ​​via Fabio Massimo, which for over ten years had become a landfill, is called Il Giardino delle Meraviglie, and is a new reception place for the post-Covid 19 period, designed for citizens, with particular attention to the inhabitants of the Corvetto district. When the CIQ reopens, an official inauguration of the space is expected.

This project was a collective therapy for the team and a tool to channel positive energies into thinking constantly aimed at the future. Despite the economic and logistical difficulties caused by the emergency situation, the team organized itself, worked voluntarily and created the garden thanks to the recovery, recycling and total creative reuse of all the abandoned materials: they were recovered, redistributed, the plants that had grown in recent years were also healed and enhanced. Some residents of the neighborhood, friends and supporters of the CIQ donated seeds and plants to enrich the garden and the staff purchased and planted fruit trees and regenerative plants in the soil in the area used as a vegetable garden.

The sculptures of Moussa Traore, an internationally renowned Senegalese artist, the pirogue bar, in the background of a blow-up of a beach in Senegal, which was part of an installation at the Fuorisalone at the Fabbrica del Vapore, and the work of art car-rapide. Finally, the works designed by will furnish the garden and host the public Paolo Lodigiani, a Milanese architect and entrepreneur who loves Senegal. These series of designs were in fact donated to the CIQ by the architect as a self-financing tool for the project, they will be exhibited and can be purchased to support the farmhouse and its initiatives.

During the quarantine period, other important things happened for the International Neighborhood Center project: the farmhouse continued to host two Alveari, every Tuesday and Friday, points of purchase of fresh 0 km products supplied by local producers. The CIQ collaborated on the initiative "Friendly Shopping"of Dare.ngo, Together with Africa1, for the purchase, sorting and distribution of food parcels to vulnerable families affected by the Covid-19 emergency. The spaces of the farmhouse were also opened to after-school activities: the Dare.ngo volunteers supported the families in carrying out the children's educational activities at home from school, a way to lighten and make less difficult an often problematic activity for parents and children.